14 February 2022
DISCLAIMER: This essay discusses chronic depression and the struggle to prevent depression from taking hold. If you are feeling alone and having thoughts of suicide—whether or not you are in crisis—or know someone who is, don’t remain silent. Talk to someone you can trust through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 or chat the Lifeline. More information and resources can be found here.
Oh, the things she tried. She tried meditation. She tried affirmations, and inspirational reading, and saying ‘no’ to things that added more than she thought she could handle. She tried. She’s tried so hard – when she had the capacity to try at all. She tried gratitude, and mindfulness, and vitamins, and writing. She tried group therapy, one-on-one therapy, behavior modification techniques, and time off work when she couldn’t do it anymore. And being alone, and being with people, and numbing herself, and trying not to numb herself, and reaching out to friends, and retreating. She tried medication. So, damn many medications. She tried positive thinking, and yoga, and taking walks, and going off into the wilderness alone, seeking something.
One day, a conversation with a friend who had her own dark place – and knew its’ pull all too well –shared a story, and something clicked. That’s the thing about such moments: You never know when they will hit. Yet, during one of the darkest periods of her life, when all her energy was spent on just getting by, so she didn’t push herself over the edge. At this moment, her friend recounted a conversation with a Buddhist monastic that struck her. The monastic explained that the neural pathways in the brain are not static. That these well-worn pathways make it easier for the brain to travel to countless places, places like the dark place. That these pathways could still be changed. That we could change them ourselves. That we could rewire our brains such that we could make it harder to go down a path. That if we redirected ourselves, that we could break down the pathways to our dark place and slowly create a trail to a better place.
She “succeeded” for a while– playing tricks that rewired her brain. At least that’s what the therapists said she did. For a time, she was able to stay out of the dark place. She got to a point where the path in her mind had become such a well-worn trail that she could easily and quickly travel through the forest without having to slash through thicket or climb over boulders. She played tricks on herself to keep from staying there too long.
At the slightest “desire” to go to the dark place – or when she would see the path out of the corner of her eye – it would call her to her private space in the forest. At the end of the trail, she knew she would be welcomed by the warm embrace that had become home. The dark place felt comforting and easy like cuddling up with a blanket on a cold, rainy day. It was confusing – this place – like depression is.
She would migrate between overwhelming sadness and numbness while also feeling at home and understood. She thought, “maybe it wasn’t so different from an abusive relationship that confused one into thinking abuse and pain are synonymous with love. So, you stay for reasons you know don’t make sense.” But still, the pull – the overwhelming pull – of the comfort at the end of the trail, dragged her in. Is this how addicts feel, she wondered.
This thought kept bouncing around in the woman’s head. As much as she knew in her mind that the dark place wasn’t helpful to her and went against everything she thought she wanted, she was also becoming aware that there was comfort there. That she was scared to lose this ‘safe’ place. The idea of building an impermeable wall at the base of the trailhead was too much to bear. Where was she going to go when she needed the safety of that place? That place, that path had become home. The place she went when she couldn’t take life anymore or didn’t know how to cope. It seemed she had needed that place all her life.
Now she realized there may be another way. That she might be able to take another path. Maybe, she thought those other, more beautiful trails were for people whose lives she thought were easier. She saw those people and wondered how they made it through life without collapsing into despair as she so often did.
So, she decided instead of building a wall to protect herself against the dark place, she would allow herself to go there but only for short visits. She would welcome its warm embrace. Just long enough to get the comfort she craved, but not so long that she let its talons hold her down, preventing her from leaving. Like visiting family you love, but whose presence wears you down. She decided to visit, but only stay for dessert.
With that decision, when the dark place called her name, she would say “okay, but I can’t stay for long.” Then she would force herself to do something, anything to distract herself so she wouldn’t be home when the dark place called back. So, even though the road to another path was rocky and full of brambles, she decided she would put on her boots and try climbing over the rocks to one of the other paths.
Over time, she found the path to the dark place began to show signs of neglect. Grass and debris began to pile up along the trail. At the same time, the rocks of the other trails were wearing down into gravel. The thicket was receding. The grass beneath the thicket was beginning to bow to the edges, creating a welcoming new trail on which to spend her time.
Eventually, the dark place called less and less knowing that the woman was busy walking other trails. Soon she would only hear it calling from a distance. She would pause, acknowledge to herself (but never to the dark place), that it was there, and she would turn back to new paths. By that point she understood the new paths held more of what she wanted: joy, laughter, and hope.
This went on for many years. She began to believe the trail to the dark place was closed and that it couldn’t call her back – not like it did before. She continued to struggle, experiencing highs and lows, but the lows stopped feeling so low. She even began to brag, telling professionals and others experiencing depression how she did it. How she contained the darkness without having to live in a catatonic state. She thought for many years that, after years of hard work, she finally relegated the dark place to a cell at the edge of her mind.
But here’s the thing, much like Mother Nature, sooner or later the dark place will find a fissure in the dam we built to contain it. Like water through a hairline fracture, it begins to leak through slowly, imperceptibly. Without us noticing, it begins chipping away at the wall from the other side like the fabled prisoner that slowly, methodically digs a hole in his cell with makeshift tools. With persistence and stealth, the prisoner, under cover of darkness, digs a path under the prison walls, beneath the prison yard, and finally before the guards know it, the prisoner bursts through on the freedom side of the prison compound. So, too, does the dam that holds back the dark place slowly degrade. Somehow, before we can respond, it is back. It has created its own path. It comes looking for its prey.
Even with ongoing diligence and the watchful eye of prison guards or our own vigilance to contain it, it finds a way. Because, you see, the dark place cannot and will not be contained. It will come calling again, now like a virus that has developed resistance to all treatment. It comes back and nothing we’ve done to contain it in the past works.
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